37 C
by heliotrip
Summary: How nonsensical can two (or one and a half, depending on who you ask) perfectly rational people be? An extensive and ongoing research effort, more commonly known as their relationship. (in other words a one-shot dumping ground for quality trash)
1. home

**A/N:** This is just where I'll eventually end up dumping some of the shorter, less structured things that I've done on a whim, I think. They mostly consist of just silly, everyday things. (Expect nothing exciting or dramatic, basically.) Not in any particular order, and certainly not chronological at all.

* * *

She almost considered ignoring it altogether. It was just another reminder of the sharp absence at her side, and if she picked up and it turned out to be another telemarketer, she really thought the poor phone wouldn't survive her frustration this time. _Beeeeep._ The dusty machine chirped again, as if sensing her annoyance, and she finally relented. It wasn't the phone's fault that Naru was an incurable idiot.

"Hello?" She answered tiredly, bracing herself for a _would you like to go on a thrilling vacation to the Fiji Islands,_ or a _this is a national survey regarding earthquake safety measures blah blah blah…_

"Mai."

The voice was unmistakable. Her grip on the phone tightened, and she pressed the speaker to her ear so hard that it dug into her skin, just to make sure that she hadn't been hallucinating. "Naru? Is that you?"

"Who else would it be?"

"Don't 'Who else would it be?' me! Do you know how long you've been gone? Two weeks! And I haven't heard from you even once!"

"There was no time during the case." He said it so matter-of-factly that wasn't even an excuse; it was a _reason._ A reasonable reason given by a very reasonable person, and of course she knew that it wasn't always easy to find time to call home on cases. It wasn't as if she didn't know what could happen on cases all too well, after all.

"I thought… I thought you…"

"I wouldn't be so stupid as to let something happen to me," he cut in.

She made a noise in her throat that started as a scoff and morphed into a protest somewhere along the way and ended up as what could most closely be classified as a strangled hiccup. Whatever it was, it elicited a brief, soft laugh from him.

"Are you done with the case?" She asked. "How were Martin and Luella? Are they well? Is Lin coming back to Japan this time, too? And Madoka?"

"It's over. They're fine. Lin is coming back."

"When?"

"In a week."

 _If you're done with the case, why do you have to wait another week?_ She swallowed the childish complaint; it was only fair that his parents got to spend time with him, too—time not spoiled by supernatural phenomenon, that is. Though Naru would probably consider that the opposite of spoiled. "It's been a while since you've gone back, hasn't it? Did you enjoy London?"

"What is there to enjoy?"

She laughed. "I don't know. The scenery, or the museums, or…"

"One city is hardly much different from another." She could practically see the disinterested expression on his face as he said it. "Never mind that. I need you to do something."

She scowled. Of course he wouldn't call just for the sake of calling; she didn't know what she'd expected. "What is it?" She asked, a little petulantly.

"Go to the convenience store and pick up today's newspaper. One with an international section."

"What? Why?"

"It would take too long to explain."

"Well, then, it looks like you'll be on the phone for a long time," she informed him, and he sighed.

"You'll know when you see it," he said, still giving no explanation. With that, he hung up, and she was left muttering curses at the dial tone in an empty room.

When she had berated the innocent phone enough to satisfy herself for the time being, she retrieved her coat and stepped outside into the chilly night air. The convenience store was only two blocks away, and she rounded the corner of the apartment building with a shiver, passing the scratched-up pay phone just ahead. It was a relief when she finally reached the warmth of the air conditioned store and headed straight for the newspapers.

She unfolded the first one that caught her eye and skimmed through it for the international news section. Bank failures, civil unrest. A diplomatic scandal. Tensions in the Pacific. She couldn't figure out what he'd been talking about. _Isn't that head of yours good for anything?_ Shut up, Naru, she told him. Apparently, she was hearing voices in her head now, too.

Flipping through the pages, she finally found the article he'd been interested in, probably. _Police Close Case on London Serial Murders; No Suspect Arrested_ , the headline blared _._ Authorities consult researchers from the Society of Psychic Research. Claims of supernatural involvement—truth or fraud? She waited until she'd paid for the thing before she crumpled it up angrily and threw it at a wall—and then reluctantly picked it back up again. Littering was a crime.

Tucking the bundle under her arm and sticking her hands in her pocket to ward off the cold, she stalked back toward their apartment building, head lowered. It wasn't until she was already at the ground-level door that she noticed that the light on their floor was on. Her breath caught in her throat, and she practically sprinted up all four flights of stairs, stopping only when her frantic fumbling proved inadequate for turning the doorknob. She inhaled deeply and tried to steady her breathing before pushing the door open impatiently.

"You forgot to lock the door when you went out," were the first words out of his mouth when he glanced up from his book, the black suitcase still propped up next to the sofa where he was sitting.

"Naru!"

She practically slammed into him, throwing her arms around him in a constrictor hold and only relaxing when his breathing sounded a little strained—not that he would ever complain out loud. It wasn't until she was absolutely sure that the mass underneath her was solid—that she wasn't dreaming—that she dared to lift her head to look at his face.

"I hate you."

He sighed in surrender. "I know."

"You said 'a week' when I asked."

"You asked when Lin was coming back," he pointed out.

"Well, obviously, I thought you'd be coming back together!"

"That's your mistake, not mine."

"Why didn't you correct me?" She demanded.

"I didn't see the need."

"Then, why did you ask me to buy this stupid paper?"

"You would have asked me about the case first thing anyways."

"Of course!" She picked up the now hopelessly wrinkled bundle of papers and waved it angrily. "Have you seen it? They're calling you a fraud."

He shrugged indifferently. "Public ignorance is hardly something new."

"Still, you could at least get a little angry, you know. They don't even know anything about you."

He gave her a faint smile and brushed a strand of hair from her eyes. "And deprive you of your chance to sulk?"

She frowned, her fingers tightening around the fabric of his shirt. "I'm not sulking. I'm getting mad for a good reason. It's because you're an idiot."

"If I'm an idiot, what does that make you?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Someone who nearly had a heart attack thanks to you."

That got a quiet laugh out of him. "That was the idea," he murmured.

"You're evil, you know," she told him. "Deceitful. Awful. The enemy of all honest people."

"If they're all at your level of intelligence, I haven't much to worry about."

"You could stand to worry a little more," she grumbled. But she was finally assuaged, and she adjusted herself into a proper sitting position before tossing the newspaper at the wastebasket with a vengeance. It missed spectacularly.

"I rest my case," Naru breathed, barely audible but for the fact that he'd murmured it right beside her ear. She elbowed him.

"Don't you dare. I'll mismatch all of your socks while you're away."

He gave in with sigh and let her rest her head on his shoulder as he returned his attention to his book.

"Is it really fine that you're here this early? Didn't your parents complain?" She finally asked the question that had been on the tip of her tongue.

"They did."

"And you still came?"

He shrugged. "You complain louder."

"I haven't complained at all," she retorted indignantly, and he finally relented.

"They've decided to visit for Christmas," he admitted. "They're coming with Lin."

She blinked in surprise, then giggled a little at the idea. "Poor Lin," she commented. "He'll be subjected to _conversation._ He must have been horrified."

"Only as much as usual," Naru dismissed.

"And whose fault is that?" She asked, raising an eyebrow. "Being in your company is a waking nightmare, you know."

"So you've said," he remarked dryly.

"I'm glad you're back."

"You've said that, too."

"I haven't," she objected. "Not yet."

"Not in words," he allowed, laying a hand over hers as she ran her fingers over the length of the seam on his sleeve. She stopped midway and turned her palm over to interlace her fingers through his, lifting her head a little so she could see his face.

"Welcome back," she murmured quietly, the only sound in the dim room aside from the rustle of another page turning in his lap. The rustling stopped, too, then, and he bent forward to place a soft kiss on her forehead.

"I'm home," he agreed.

In the ensuing silence, it was almost as if he'd never been gone at all.


	2. complaints

The monk paced back and forth in front of the office sofa atop which she was perched, an air of gravity around him all the while. When he finally stopped pacing and lifted his head to meet her eyes, it was with the most serious look she'd ever seen on his face.

"Mai," he began heavily. "We need to talk."

She nodded.

"It's a very pressing matter." Squaring his shoulders, he placed a hand beside his back and solemnly held out the other. "Yasuhara, if you please."

"Oh, I do please," the university student assured him with a jovial wink, handing him a stack of papers. "I'm generally very good at pleasing. Would you like a demonstration, Takigawa-san?"

The comment earned him a look of intense disapproval. "Young man, you are ruining the atmosphere," the monk complained before turning back to Mai. "Forget him for now. As I was saying, we have a problem. Or, rather, you have a problem. You and little Naru-chan. More accurately, the problem is what you _don't_ have."

She nodded again, waiting for him to just spit it out already.

"Of course, considering that it's you two, it's not like we weren't expecting it, but it is still quite an issue. We would say that are lacking…" He paused for dramatic effect. " _Self-awareness._ As such, Yasuhara and I have taken it upon ourselves to instruct you on the merits of paying attention to the basics. Time, place, circumstance, you know."

The effect was instant. Her face turned a shade so red that it made Ayako's lipstick look pale in comparison. "I have no idea what you're talking about," she said stubbornly.

"Are you just pretending to have no idea, or are you really that dense?" Yasuhara asked with genuine curiosity.

"We're perfectly discreet," she insisted.

"If that's what you call 'perfect,' I don't think our dear Naru will want to be a perfectionist anymore," the monk said dryly before clearing his throat and giving his papers a self-important shake. He held the pages at arm's length, peering down his nose at them with solemnity. "We guessed that you would have trouble believing us, though. As proof, I bear testimonies from several anonymous sources. First of all, from A-san, whose full name shall not be disclosed: 'After spending not half an hour in a closed vehicle with the two of them, a four-hour trip in the van alone with Lin seems like a trip to the circus.' …So she says."

"That's exaggerating," Mai said crossly. "The trip wasn't that bad. Anyways, Naru alone is enough to top Lin in terms of torturous silence."

"I don't think the silence was the torturous part," Yasuhara pointed out. "As M-san notes—"

"As M-san notes," Takigawa interrupted him, eliciting a good-natured sigh from the university student.

"I'm not allowed to speak?" He asked mournfully.

"You're going to derail the conversation," the monk informed him. " _You_ would do well to pay attention to the virtues of time, place, and circumstance as well."

"Exactly." Mai folded her arms indignantly. "For Yasuhara of all people to be raising this complaint is ludicrous."

"Young lady, just because this young man doesn't practice what he preaches, that doesn't mean you're off the hook," Takigawa said flatly. "As M-san most eloquently notes, 'Seeing as some of us actually have any looks to speak of, it would be nice to be able to get some beauty rest on cases once in a while.'"

"Masako—excuse me, _M-san_ —will complain about anything and everything," she retorted.

"Then what about this one? 'Staying in a room with Naru and Mai for any extended period of time has given me personal insight into the seventh ring of hell. I have never felt more devout—or closer, quite literally, to our Father in heaven—in my life.' Signed, J-san."

"That's an obvious forgery!" Mai protested. "John would never say that!"

"I know nothing of this 'John' you speak of," Yasuhara said innocently. "It was a testimony collected from a certain, unnamed 'J-san,' nothing more."

"Mai," the monk sighed, "Do you at least agree that while running out of a collapsing building is not a good time to be holding a shouting match?"

"Well, what did you want me to do?" She demanded. "He wouldn't have been able to hear me if I'd just spoken normally, would he?"

"Not to mention all those arguments in the middle of the night." Takigawa continued with dissatisfaction. "How many iterations of 'You're an idiot' and 'No, I'm not' do the two of you even plan on going through before you're satisfied? Incidentally, do you know how many times I've lost money betting that you'd run out of new ways to word it within the month?"

"He starts them," she said petulantly. "And we _whisper._ "

"Not very quietly," Yasuhara added helpfully. "And anyways, I know ill-timed, spontaneous displays of affection when you _think_ nobody's looking are an integral part of your relationship, but I must inform you that kissing is not a free action."

The scowl she gave him could have sent them into the next ice age. "Well," she muttered darkly, "Maybe not for _you_ , since you only ever get to do it when you pay."

"Mai!" Takigawa stared at her in exaggerated horror as Yasuhara fanned himself with mock indignation. "There are _children_ here!"

"I'm not a child!"

"He was talking about me," the university student assured her. "But, anyways, you get the point, right? Do _try_ to keep your arguments contained to situations that are more… opportune."

"Fine," she relented. "I'll try. But it's not always my fault, you know," she added defensively. "Why don't you go tell Naru that, too? It's not like I can get in a shouting match with myself."

The two of them exchanged a brief look, and she grinned widely.

"What? Are you scared of Naru?"

"Scared?" The monk scoffed. "Me? As if. Ridiculous. Alright, maybe a little, but you can hardly blame me. Right, young man?"

"He _is_ devastatingly beautiful," Yasuhara said with a sage-like nod. "It leaves one at quite a loss for words sometimes. Surely you understand the sentiment, Taniyama-san?"

As if on cue, the office door opened just then, and both Lin and Naru walked in with matching expressions on their unreadable faces. The monk and his accomplice affected innocence, doing their best to blend in with the furniture. They almost succeeded, too—extended association had all but rendered their presence, however conspicuous, virtually indistinguishable from the décor in the room to the young researcher. Unless, of course, he was provoked.

"Naru," Mai called in a sing-song voice. "Yasuhara-san and Bou-san say they have something _very_ important to tell you."

He cast them a disinterested glance.

"They'd like to tell you that they think you're…" She paused for emphasis, then continued sweetly, "Too _loud._ "

Yasuhara was smart enough to keep quiet, but Takigawa stood up immediately, spouting feeble explanations and excuses that died down just as quickly, effectively proving his guilt. The glare Naru gave him was positively lethal.

"Of course we don't mean that you're _noisy,_ " the monk said hastily. "Just that, during cases, you could… er… That is... We just… Think you sound very authoritative," he finished weakly.

"Takigawa-san," Naru said icily.

The monk scratched his head with a nervous laugh. "What is it?"

"I'm glad to hear you've finally decided to incline yourself toward silence for a change. Perhaps you could start with your own ceaseless prattle."

Takigawa gave a defeated sigh in response. And thus, the topic was never brought up again.

* * *

 **A/N:** Naru, our fine champion of such vital human rights as the freedom to call your assistant an idiot whenever and wherever you so please.

(Incidentally, it turns out that kissing _is_ a free action when you threaten to filibuster your GM with a serenade in the middle of a boss fight. Not that I would know. Though Yasuhara might.)

Thank you for all your lovely feedback, by the way, and I hope any subsequent nonsense proves a worthwhile distraction as well.


	3. fleeting encounters

**A/N** : This is kind of stupid but I just needed to procrastinate, ahaha. Takes place about a month or two before GH canon starts.

* * *

It was just a normal spring afternoon. There was no particular reason behind his decision to take a detour through the children's section of the library that day. Nostalgia, perhaps, or even mere impulse. As he ambled through the low, wooden bookshelves, the thin stripes and bright colors lining them assaulted his eyes, a surrealist landscape to a mind that had become all too accustomed to thinking of libraries as endless corridors of towering metal frames filled with old, greying covers.

It was only a few minutes in before he realized the idea had been a terrible one; the colorful photos of frogs and the cheerful illustrations of planets and lightbulbs dragged out unwanted memories—memories of a simpler time when planetary pull was nothing short of magic; and who needed real magic when your twin could speak to dead people? _Did you know? I found Lord Byron yesterday, and he told me about this one time…_ The look on Luella's face when Gene had recounted the story was horror incarnate; _where did you pick up that kind of language, young man?_ 'No summoning dead Casanovas until you're eighteen' became a house rule after that.

Lost in thought, he almost walked right by it. As it was, he'd already taken three steps past the offense in question before he had to physically backtrack to take another look at the glaring problem with the bookshelf to his left. The problem in question was a small, well-worn dark blue picture book with pages that were wrinkled at the edges, sitting smugly on the featured displays right between a brand new hardcover titled G _ravity_ and another that read _Laws of Motion_. _Ten Classic Ghost Stories for Kids,_ the book proclaimed. He checked the shelf again just to make sure; yes, this was the nonfiction section.

 _Kids_ , he thought scathingly as he reached for the thin volume, flipping through the pages. Weren't they taught to put a book back in its proper place after reading it these days? And the absurdity of the stories was incredible. He'd yet to see a ghost that actually looked like a shapeless blob covered in a white sheet. Did anyone actually find these scary? Was this really the sort of thing normal kids found interesting? He flipped through the other nine stories just to make sure.

* * *

It was only begrudgingly that he made his way to the library again two weeks later. Trips to the newspaper archives were never pleasant, and it wasn't because he only ever needed to go through them for the obituaries, no. It certainly wasn't because he'd come to associate the square, black print and fragile, dust-colored paper with endless lists of names and dates and names and dates and descriptions of people who didn't exist anymore. In a way, they were lucky. Print was immortality. But when, when, had research and discovery become _this?_

Regardless, what had to be done, had to be done, and he ignored the square characters that swam across his field of vision even after he slammed the last binder shut and stood up. Strictly speaking, he didn't _need_ to go through the children's nonfiction section to get back to the entrance, but it wasn't exactly _farther_ , either, he reasoned. And the hideous rainbow array would at least wash away the hours bent over the stiff black-and-white lettering of the obituaries.

Out of sheer curiosity, he slipped into the physics section just to check if that collection of ghost stories was still there. Of course, the probability was slim to none, since it was hideously out of place, and the librarians must have noticed. Or even if they hadn't, some snot-nosed brat who couldn't tell the difference between a microbolometer and an actinometer had probably mistaken it for an actual science book and taken it home. But, still, he checked, because he dealt in absolutes, not conjecture.

It wasn't there.

Instead, in its place, someone had lovingly arranged another grossly out-of-place volume titled _The Haunted House_ , complete with watercolor illustrations of an amusingly anthropomorphic building _._ That wasn't it, either; there was another one, _The Floating Pumpkin Head_ , by the section about dolphins. It was proof beyond doubt; someone was doing this on purpose.

* * *

It would be an exaggeration to say that he'd made a trip to the library just to see if someone with, apparently, a lot of free time had continued their absurd endeavor of misplacing books from the fiction section on the nonfiction shelves. He did, after all, have legitimate work to do here. Granted, he _could_ have done it later, but procrastination was hardly among the seven virtues. And granted, he didn't necessarily _need_ more reference books for it, but it never hurt to have more sources.

If that had been his goal, though, he would have been sorely disappointed; only the regular collection of nonfiction greeted him that day. He scanned the displays of all the bookshelves, even ducking down briefly to check the shelves themselves just in case another _Floating Pumpkin Head_ had been stealthily camouflaged between the other thin paperbacks. Still no luck.

With an indifferent shrug, he was just about to head toward his actual destination when a rustling sound from a few shelves over caught his attention. He turned his head to size up the intruder, who looked every bit as out of place in this section as _The Floating Pumpkin Head._ She was perhaps middle school age, wearing short brown hair and a furtive glance around the narrow space that seemed to mean that she thought she was being stealthy. How that could be possible when the wooden shelves didn't even come up to her shoulder, he didn't know, but they did say that ignorance was bliss.

"Those look like fascinating books," he remarked out loud once she was within earshot. "But last I checked, the children's fiction section was on a different floor."

The middle school girl's eyes flew to him with shock, and she almost lost her grip on one of the books she was holding; evidently, she hadn't spotted him. "Huh?" She said blankly.

" _The Spirit in the Valley_ ," he quoted, reading off the title of one of the volumes in her hands. "That certainly sounds relevant to…" He cast a quick glance at the shelves to check which section they were in. "Astronomy."

"What?" She answered with a nervous laugh. "No, I mean—uh, yes, I love the astronomies—er, the planets!"

"Right," he said dryly. "Almost as much as the library staff loves re-shelving misplaced books, I'm sure."

If possible, she looked even more nervous. "Ahh… Yes… Of course… They must really…"

"Incidentally, I noticed a copy of _Ten Ghost Stories for Children_ around here the other day," he commented off-handedly.

"It wasn't me!" She blurted out, then immediately looked aghast. He raised an eyebrow.

"Did I say it was?"

"Okay, okay, it was me." The middle schooler said begrudgingly, her shoulders sinking in defeat. "Don't tell anyone? Please? I won't do it anymore.

"So you did know you were being a nuisance," he said with a quiet scoff.

She lifted her head to frown at him indignantly. "I'm not trying to be a _nuisance._ I mean, it's not like I wanted to cause trouble. I just thought it would be kind of nice if a kid saw one of these in the science section and got to keep believing that it is real science for a little longer. You know, kinda like Santa Claus?"

"You're willfully spreading misinformation," he pointed out.

"They're _kids_ ," she objected. "Kids should have fun. And aren't ghost stories and haunted houses fun? I mean, haven't you ever wished that spirits could be real or something?"

"No," he said bluntly.

She scowled. "You must be fun at parties."

"Certainly."

The girl fixed him with an intent stare, as if trying to evaluate whether he was being serious or merely joking. After a few seconds, she seemed to give up and folded her arms with a huff. "So, are you planning to tell?"

"Tell what?" He asked, checking his wristwatch indifferently. "You just have a keen interest in…" He gave the shelves beside him another disparaging glance. "Astronomy books for primary school students, right?"

A wide grin broke across her face. "Yes!"

"It probably does suit your level of literacy," he conceded. The grin on her face promptly melted back into indignation, but before she could respond, he turned away. "At any rate, I don't have any more time to be wasting here. Try not to misplace any more books."

"Try not being such a stick in the mud," she called from behind. He didn't look back to confirm, but he suspected she'd stuck her tongue out at him, too. He didn't have a chance to check, anyways; the corner of the hallway had come up, and he rounded it without hesitation, falling back into the comfort of more familiar walls. The exchange faded quickly from his memory, no more than another tiny drop in the flow of time. It was just another spring afternoon.

He realized, idly, several days later, as nothing more than a passing thought, that he had never asked for her name; reporting her would have been impossible anyways, even if he'd been so inclined. But, he figured, it would have just been a waste of breath. After all, he doubted they'd ever meet again.

* * *

 **A/N** : A silly idea that popped into my head, and also because dramatic irony is one of my favorite things. I do realize I'm stretching the boundaries of suspension of disbelief here since the probability that Mai could have run into Naru shortly before meeting him and not recognized him again is pretty slim, especially given how she goes on and on and on about how attractive he looks from day one, but, ack, whatever. (Though, honestly, I am calling unreliable narrator on this count. Is Naru really _that_ attractive? And is everyone really making _that_ much of a fuss over him? Above average looks, maybe. Supermodel-grade, even, possibly. But, really, Mai, 'melting moonlight inside the twilight abyss'? I sense bias here. (I couldn't even make that up if I tried. That is copy/pasted straight from the unofficial English translations of the novels.) (And I am only half-kidding with this whole argument.)


End file.
